Nearly every photo of me past the age of eight tells a story in changing eyeglass fashion—just like the oversize frames above, which are weirdly coming back in style.
I’ve spent most of my life in a quiet negotiation with the world—trying to see it clearly, trying to be seen clearly, and occasionally smudging both in the process.
There’s a particular kind of childhood humiliation that comes with early eyeglasses. The “do they make my eyes look weird?” phase, and “why does everyone suddenly notice me more?” phase. The “I have to sit at the front of the classroom now” phase. I remember all of it.
Especially my mother asking me in that scolding voice, “Why didn’t you tell me everything was blurry?” when I kept raising my new glasses and putting them back on, amazed at the difference. How is a kid supposed to know how things really look?
Since then, I’ve done the full optical journey: hard contact lenses (a painful form of discipline I would not recommend), soft contacts (more forgiving, still annoying), and eventually eye surgery after early cataracts —thanks to a medical detour in my twenties.
I have an astigmatism, which means glasses are non-negotiable. Progressive bifocals, no less, because apparently my eyes now believe in efficiency.
I’ve had good frames. I’ve had great frames. I’ve had experimental phases.
My first pair, as a third grader, were cat’s-eyes.
In high school, early 70s, I wore wire-rimmed pink glasses, which matched the flowers in my hair, bare feet and bellbottom jeans. I had oversized “owl” glasses in the 80s.
The worst were a pair of aviator frames in the late ’70s. I think I was influenced—at least partly—by Gloria Steinem, who made oversized glasses look effortlessly cool. On her, they suggested mystery and confidence. On me, they suggested I was trying something on that didn’t quite belong.
Eventually, I squawked enough to the optician that he agreed to order me a different pair. There’s something satisfying about that memory now and the idea that even then, I knew enough to protest a version of myself that didn’t feel right.
We all have those early style negotiations, don’t we?
All of them told a story
What I’ve come to understand is this: glasses aren’t just medical equipment. They’re identity shifts in plastic and metal. They change how you enter a room, how you recognize yourself in a mirror, how long it takes to feel like you after you put them on in the morning.
How lost you are without them.
Each pair becomes a version of you. Some you outgrow. Some you wish you could revisit. Some you are really glad that no photographic evidence survives.
If you’ve worn glasses long enough, you probably have your own archive too—frames you loved, frames you tolerated, and at least one pair that still haunts you in old photos.
I’d love to hear your eyewear stories. The good, the bad, and the absolutely unforgivable. Do tell!
Thanks for visiting! I’m an author, poet and artist.
My newest work is a novel, Love and Other Incurable Ailments, coming 10/17/2026. You can preorder here: Bookshop | Amazon | Regal House Publishing | Barnes and Noble